When presenting the result of measurements or calculations it is important to properly represent the precision of the number. Most measuring devices will only give a result that is equal to their precision. However, when making calculations with measurements you often get a result that goes to many more decimal places than the original value. This can easily exaggerate the precision of the measurement. It is important for students to be able to identify significant digits using a few basic rules, and present only the significant figures in a calculation.
The following customizable and printable worksheets are designed to help students practice working with significant figures. The Identifying Significant Figures Worksheet includes up to 30 randomly generated whole numbers, decimals, or numbers written in scientific notation. The student’s goal is to practice identifying significant figures by counting the number of significant digits in each number. For practicing calculations the Adding with Significant Figures Worksheet and Subtracting with Significant Figures Worksheet makers will create randomly generated sets of decimal addition and subtraction problems. The student’s goal is to perform the calculations and round the results to the correct number of significant digits.
